The artist is self -wrapping
Like many works of Samokhvalov, this chamber work makes the impression of a fragment of lost fresco. According to the artist’s beliefs, modernity should be portrayed in monumental forms, inspired by the art of antiquity, Renaissance and Ancient Rus’. That is how he sought to integrate the depicted moment in the historical perspective, emphasize its significance, to envelop it with a romantic aura. His models were mostly young people who personified the beautiful paradise future, which they had to build and inhabit. In the image of a dreamy young physical education, Self -Praise depicted his eldest daughter Maria.
For the happiness of the people. Catalog of the exhibition of the Russian Museum in Malaga. 2018. WITH. 62.
The topic of sports was one of the most popular in Soviet art of the mid-1920-1930s. Artists designed to form the ideal of a new person saw his prototype in physical cultures – young and beautiful people who, improving the body, temper the spirit. At this time, athletes become the main characters of Samokhvalov’s works. He dreamed of uniting them in a grand monumental composition. Perhaps that is why many of his paintings of those years seem fragments of a large multi -figure fresco. This also applies to the “girl with the ball”, the model for which was the daughter of the artist Maria. However, from the general row this work is highlighted by the complete absence of rhetoric, special, almost intimate lyricism, touching tenderness with which the artist touches the pure world of a teenager. (L. B.).
Russian portrait. XX century: St. Petersburg, 2001. WITH. 240.
